Trump hints at 'action' if Hamas doesn't return hostage bodies

President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to "eradicate" Hamas if the militant group breaks the ceasefire agreement.

"We have a little situation, relatively, with Hamas, and that will be taken care of very quickly if they don't straighten it out themselves, because they're in violation of their agreement," Trump said as he took reporter questions at a White House event with Australia's prime minister.

"We made a deal with Hamas that, you know, they're going to be very good, they're going to behave, they're going to be nice and if they're not, we're going to go in, we're going to eradicate them if we have to," Trump added. "They'll be eradicated, they know that."

Trump was then asked if such a scenario would involve U.S. military on the ground.

"No, it won't be on the ground at all because we don't need to because we have many countries, as you know, signed onto this deal," Trump said. He claimed other countries would want to go in and combat Hamas, and that Israel would do it "in two minutes if I told them"

"But right now we haven't said that. We're going to give it a little chance and hopefully there will be a little less violence," Trump said.

President Donald Trump on Monday was asked what his administration is doing to ensure the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds after a weekend of violence in Gaza.

"A lot of steps," Trump responded as he took questions from reporters during a bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, though he didn't elaborate on what those steps were. "And right now, it's in the hands of others."

White House special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Israel on Monday to bolster the shaky agreement and try to continue implementation of the second phase of Trump's 20-point peace plan.

Hamas will return a body of an “Israeli captive” at 8 p.m. local time, 1 p.m. ET on Monday, Hamas said.

The body was found in Gaza on Sunday, Hamas said. The body will be returned through the same procedure previous bodies have: by handing the deceased from Hamas to Red Cross officials to the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, Hamas said.

Hospitals in Gaza recorded 57 Palestinian deaths over the last 24 hours due to strikes from the Israel Defense Forces, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said. Out of those 57 people, 45 were directly targeted by the strikes and 12 people were recovered from under the rubble.

Another 158 people were taken to hospitals in Gaza with injuries, the Ministry of Health said.